Politics is big in these parts, and we’ve got it covered. John Arthur Hutchison and other staff writers will offer their inside information on the events, big news and little moments of the local political scene in Lake, Geauga and eastern Cuyahoga counties.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Will Ohio voters get say on redistricting?

It looks like we’ll
have to wait a little bit longer to know if a state constitutional amendment
will be on the Nov. 6 ballot to change how Ohio draws up congressional and
state legislative districts.

Ohio Secretary of State
Jon
Husted certified that the referendum effort collected 254,625 valid
signatures to fall 130,628 short of the needed 385,253 valid signatures to
appear as a statewide issue.

The petitioning group
Voters First also needs to collect signatures from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88
counties, and within each of those counties collect enough valid signatures
equal to 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the most recent
gubernatorial election, 2010.

Signatures met or
exceeded the 5 percent threshold in 34 counties, including Lake, Geauga and
Cuyahoga, according to the Secretary of State’s office.

Voters First has until
Saturday to submit additional signatures to Husted’s office, and the group said
that it will continue to collect them.

Ohio Republican Party
Chairman Bob
Bennett said he wasn’t surprised by Husted’s findings after the GOP
examined 2,000 of the petitions submitted.

Voters First seeks to
change the process regarding how districts are drawn up to one that is done by
a nonpartisan citizens commission.

Every 10 years when
U.S. Census results are released with new population totals, Ohio is able to
change the Ohio General Assembly districts’ boundaries.

By law, that process is
done by the state Reapportionment Board comprised of the governor, secretary of
state, auditor, and two state legislators from the opposite party.

Last year, Republicans
comprised a 4-1 majority on that board, essentially having a free hand to draw
the districts. Democrats last controlled the board in 1971 and 1981.

Shaping the boundaries
for congressional districts is done a little differently, as it is done by the
Ohio General Assembly, where Republicans currently are the majority in the Ohio
House of Representatives and Ohio Senate.

Legislators
also were faced with the task of shrinking Ohio’s congressional districts down
to 16 after the state lost two seats U.S. House of Representatives because of
stagnant population growth the past decade.

Critics
of both methods say partisan politics plays too much of a role and the
boundaries that are drawn up often don’t make sense geographically or keep
regional interests in mind.

Proponents
say that the party that controls these decisions should be able to retain that
right because voters had their say when electing statewide office holders and
members of the Ohio General Assembly.

Republicans
say they also eliminated a GOP and Democratic leaning district as part of the
congressional redistricting.

In the
past, both Democrats and Republicans have talked about reforming the process to
draw these districts, but efforts have stalled because the party in power
doesn’t want to give that right up.

So it
time to give voters the chance to have a say? We’ll see shortly.

Wondering

Is Lake County
Commissioner Daniel
P. Troy close to making a decision to leave the race for Ohio House
of Representatives District 60? He was selected as the Democratic Party’s
nominee during the Nov. 6 primary.

Fundies

n Fundraiser for Nancy McArthur,
candidate for Ohio Senate District 32, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. July 26 at the home
of Tom and Melissa Pope
in Ashtabula. See McArthur.

n Fundraiser for Lori DiNallo,
candidate for Ohio House of Representatives District 60, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.,
July 26 at Fitzgerald’s Irish Bed And Breakfast in Painesville. See Jan Clair or
Dale
Fellows.